alhenderson

That's exactly it! Everything else pales into insignificance 😁 Al

RFI is here if anyone's interested: @Trumpton_Orbital you're right about the sidewinders, glad I make the effort with those in the end 👍 Al

I didn't find it too bad, the top and bottom fuselage join behind the wings needed some work. Although any issues with the kit were overshadowed by my struggles with the FlightPath set. Al

Thanks for the kind words 👍

This is my build of the Hasegawa 1/72 Tornado F.3, enhanced with the FlightPath F.3 detail set and some Xtradecal markings. I was in two minds what markings to do for this, when I started out I fancied the early 5 squadron markings with the red chevron and tail band. In the end, though, my Leuchars past won out and we instead have a much more restrained 43 sqn machine. ZE961/GA, along with sister ship ZE962/GB, was delivered to the Fife base on the afternoon of the Battle of Britain airshow in September 1989. Being an impressionable young lad at the time, I was always more interested in the shiny new stuff so these were one of the highlights of the day for me. 50 year old me would rather I had paid more attention to the Phantoms but there we go! Oddly, I don't have any pictures of the two F.3s. Maybe they were surrounded by crowds and I didn't have the patience to deal with that. The FlightPath set was a challenge. It provides a lot of stuff - resin hindenberger tanks, sidewinders, skyflash, PE front undercarriage doors, replacement wing pylons, aerials and a refuelling probe. What it does not supply (in my opinion) is anything approaching usable instructions. I appreciate that these kind of detail sets are for advanced modellers (which I am not) but at least some better diagrams of the where all the bits go would have been nice, as well as a guide to which bits were which. I didn't use all the set - a lot of the PE is still in the box (and I lost one of the metal pylons so had to use the kit ones mated to the metal sidewinder rails) but seeing the finished result I think it was worth the effort. I particularly like the IFR probe, having it open adds a little bit of interest. The alignment of it is not quite right but its acceptable from a distance. The tanks in the FlightPath set are also a better size than the kit tanks. All that resin and metal does make her very heavy, if someone breaks into my house I may be able to take them out with an F.3! There was a nervous moment when I stood her up for the first time after attaching the tanks 😬 I didn't use the FlightPath missiles as they were a pain to assemble (9 bits for each!). Instead I got some ResKit AIM-9s which are lovely and went with the kit Skyflashes which look suitable missile-like. Painted with Xtracolor enamels, which sprayed really well, and then coated with Mr Hobby satin when decalled. That was a mistake as it reacted with the Xtracolor in a number of places where it went on quite wet. I managed to sand back some of the damage and the rest is hidden, so don't tell anyone 🙂 Weathering used W&N oils, Humbrol weathering powder for the tail and a Flory wash. I started out thinking she was going to be factory fresh as on that Saturday in 1989, but couldn't help grubbying her up a bit. The tail is still clean by F.3 standards, though! Anyway, on with some pictures. And finally a phone shot attempting to show the detail in the cockpit from the FlightPath set. You can just about see the rear view mirrors mounted on the canopy, and the TV displays on the navigator's coaming. I'm not usually bothered about detailing cockpits, but I think these are really nice details, and were not hard to do. Thanks for looking - and thanks to everyone who chipped on the WIP thread, its been a long slog - but then I'm no quick builder! Al.

That's a great result - looks lovely! Al.

I'm used to the concept of a squadron's code range *starting* with a certain letter (Gx for 43 sqn F.3 for example), but never heard of them using the second letter as the common one. Seems like a really backward way to go about it! Al.

Thanks for that, not too worry. I think the sidewinders look OK, TBF. I'm less convinced about the LAG on the Skyflashes, to my eye it doesn't look grey enough, a little too warm. However, I've seen many sources saying they were LAG. In other news - she's finished!! 🎉🎉 Painted the pitot probe and put on the little sensors on the side of the nose and just like that she slips quietly over the line. Only took 6 months! Grabbed a quick picture on the phone before I do some proper ones. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, there are plenty of flaws to be found but all things considered I'm pretty happy to have an F.3 on the shelf. She weighs a ton - a lot of noise weight and those resin tanks, I think. Let's hope the undercarriage can cope 😬 Thanks everyone for the support and comments along the way, much appreciated as always 👍 Al

She looks great - the weathering underneath looks good! Bought one of these myself recently, it might just have moved closer to the top of the build order 🤔 Al.

I used Light Aircraft Grey for the sidewinders and the sky flash. Found a thread somewhere on here about it. At the start of the last week of this build! I've finished grafting the FlightPath sidewinder pylons onto the kit tank pylons. Worked pretty well, got a good join between the two. Had to also paint the other two ResKit missiles that I hadn't done. That leaves us here on Sunday evening. F.3s look so good with those tanks! Haven't yet fitted the tank etc to the other side. In my head, the master pitot tube was just going to slot in to the nose. Given that the hole in the nose was no longer there, that hope was dashed pretty quickly 😟. Having done some fettling, we're now here Not great. Wish I'd thought to test for this before now, as I'm having to drill and sand the nose whilst holding it and trying not to break anything off 😬 doesn't help that it's gone hot again and my hands are sweaty. I need to get this fit sorted before adding the other tank and the aerials. Damnit! Al

Been away from the bench for a couple of days, contemplating what to do about the IFR probe. Finally got back to it tonight and had a go at gently repositioning it. Turns out I haven't super glued it nearly as well as I thought I had 🤣 It moved very easily, and without collateral damage, into a better position. Striking whilst the iron was hot, I put in the support strut and the cover to complete the assembly of the probe. Much happier with that. It's not perfectly straight from every angle, but I reckon any Flt Lt Bloggs worth his salt could probably fill up from a TriStar using it 😁 Assembly of the sidewinder pylons continues, quite happy with how that's looking. Just got to hope I've put enough nose weight in for these mighty heavy tanks and the metal pylons 😬 Al

NMF scares me a little, my attempt in my Lightning T.4 was OK, but not great. Its just so hard to replicate the different tones across the finish - a uniform silver just looks a bit rubbish. I used polishing powder as well on mine, which was quite cool to work with. Al.

That metal finish looks great!

That red star on the tail is a really cool detail! Regarding the sword decals, I had no problems at all (apart from putting the fin flash the wrong way round, but I don' think I can blame the decals for that!). I put them down with micro set and micro sol, mainly out of habit, tbf. They would probably have been fine with water. Regarding the weathering, I use Newton & Winsor oils, they have a raw umber (or burnt umber, maybe both) which I use for that kind of streaking, works really well. I also have some AK weathering pencils which are also good. Funny, you had trouble with the main wheels, I remember these being way more robust for me than I anticipated, yet I had far more trouble with the nosewheel! Al.

Buckled up and tackled the IFR probe this evening. Took a while to get it seated in the hole I'd previously made in the plastic card seated in the recess, but got there in the end (although not after I'd had serious regrets about not just leaving it in place when I test fitted it all those months ago!). Gotta be honest, I'm not that happy with it, looks rubbish from that angle, not sure if I've seated it wrong or if everything's moved around a bit. It's super glued in now so I'm not sure I can do much about it. Even if I got it out again I don't know how much I could affect the sitting of it at this stage. Given the effort that went into this bit earlier I was really hoping it would look the part 😟 Having realised I might be getting near the end, I decided to revisit the whole sidewinder shoulder pylon situation. Decided I'd have a go at fitting the metal shoulder pylons to the kit pylons. Turns out, if you remove the locating pins there's actually a decent area to allow a solid join. Compare and contrast.. Metal pylon on the left. Now I'm happy it can be done, I'll remove the kit one from the other side and replace it and then do the two for the other wing. Of course all this metal will need priming and spraying and then I have to sort out an extra two sidewinders. More effort, but I do think it's worth it. Al

She's looking great and you don't seem to be having any issues with it. Makes me want to try again, as its a good looking machine. Al.

Still rumbling on. It's been stupidly hot here in the East Midlands for the last week or so, making it very uncomfortable to be upstairs modelling. Didn't realise modelling was such a weather dependent hobby!! Anyway, have been plodding along with some of the finishing off jobs. Have now got the gear doors on. The main doors needed some sanding to get them to fit properly around the gear struts. It felt as if I'd fitted the gear wrong and they were sticking out too far, but it looks about right, so not sure. They're on, although I don't think the angle is quite right. I've said some less than complimentary things about the Flightpath set over the course of this build (which I still stand by!) but I must say that the front gear doors are really nice. I'm not sure what it is about them, maybe just they're thin-ness and the way they make the kit doors look so thick? I even managed to bend and form the bits that attach inside the doors. There were some tiny little bits for the door at the back which I think are supposed to attach to the gear. Tried them, they came off again as soon as I went near them so not wasting any more sanity on those! Speaking of sanity, I've been decalling the reskit sidewinders. Some 10 or so decals on each (and I didn't do them all!). They do look nice, though, I'll be using these again. And much simpler than trying to assemble the Flightpath white metal/PE ones! Just got some aerials, the pylons and the IFR probe to do. Might tackle the latter first as it's the trickiest. I hope it still fits as well as it did when I last tried it all those months ago 🤞🤞😬 Stay tuned! Final straight now.. Al

I built this kit a couple of years ago. My WIP is here, although you seem to be getting on just fine so might not be of much use.. I had some big issues with the nosewheel, kept coming off so I had to do some surgery to get it to fit better, that's on page 4 if you're interested. Al.

Did it end its life as a decoy at Binbrook? I seem to recall seeing that some of them had stars painted on the tail? Regarding the orange tint, I think that's exhaust staining from those small holes you can see above the rear of the wing? I'd use a weathering pencil or a little drop of burnt umber oil to achieve that. Love a lightning! Al.

Spent a few hours over the weekend weathering the Tonka. Mixture of flory wash, oils and some smoke weathering powder. Used the latter for the first time in ages because I wasn't happy with my attempt at spraying Tamiya smoke. For some reason I just couldn't get it to look right, just went on too wet and looked rubbish. All in all I think I'm just about on the right side of "too much weathering". Although I have had to spend some time coaxing the flory wash out of some of the panel lines as it was too much. I've used various shades of grey (not quite 50!) in oils to give some tonal variation to the grey. It's really subtle, which is probably a good thing, not even aware it's there most of the time. I've certainly gone way beyond the September 1989 appearance when she was fresh out of the dealership and on the Leuchars airshow flight line. Didn't mean to make her quite so grubby but I do like working with the oils. I think that's it for weathering, time for the final assembly. Which includes the IFR probe - let's hope all that time I spent trial fitting it many months ago pays off! Al

She looks fantastic 👍 I added one to my stash last year, such a great looking machine. Al

Those redtops look great. I've just received a couple of their sidewinders which are great. Might have to get some other missiles as well for future builds. Al

Thanks for that - I think you're right, I went a bit heavy in a few places - thankfully not very many! I have some acrylic varnishes (e.g. VMS) but I'm not that confident using them so reverted to my comfort zone of Mr Hobby - oops! Will get some practise in with the VMS. Thanks for the info re: oils as well 👍 Al.

Not sure if this is any help? XV203 seen at Leuchars in 1994. Al.

Yes, they look really nice. Going to have to be careful extracting them from their cage, but that has to be infinitely preferable to assembling them from 9 bits of white metal and photo etch! Checking on the results of yesterday's satin coat this evening I found this: Has happened in a couple of places, but this is the worst. I guess my Mr Hobby varnish has reacted with the Xtracolor enamel. It's not everywhere, though, so maybe I went in too thick in some places? Going to have to try and sand that back, likely to need a respray. At least there aren't any decals round there! In a search for some positive progress, I took off the canopy masking. Worked well, couple of bits to remove with a damp toothpick, bit all in all a decent result. I also had a stab at spraying Tamiya smoke on the fin. For some reason I couldn't get it right. Was coming out far too wet and looked like someone had sprayed really wet paint on it. Luckily most of it was on a mule. I've used smoke before and it's looked pretty good, but it wasn't playing ball tonight so I came inside for a beer instead 🍻 Anyway, here we are at close of play today: Weathering next. Better check I can use oils over the Mr Hobby varnish, sure I must have done so before but after that paint crazing, I'll be checking on the mule to be sure 🤞 Al